Martial – Marcus Valerius Martialis – was a first century Roman poet. He came to live in Rome from Augusta Bilbilis, near Calatayud in modern Spain, and made his name through his hundreds of short poems or ‘epigrams’. Witty, punchy and far too foulmouthed and sexually explicit for broadcast on Radio 4, only now are these poems becoming better appreciated by a wider readership.

Here are a few versions (not translations) of a few of Martial’s less fleshy poems, with the Latin originals. I imagine him not in the Roman Forum or on the Capitoline, but on the mean streets of contemporary Swansea.

Bookbuying (Book 1, no. 2)

You want my book with you wherever you go. A mate,
like, on a long trip? This is the format you need,
paperback, pocket-sized. Leave the bonkbusters
and the 600 pagers on Waterstones’ shelves.
You can hold me in one hand. ‘Where do I buy you?’
Don’t waste your time getting lost in the backstreets.
Take a cruise down Fabian Way, past the new Campus
and the Temple of Vulcan, take the next junction
for Jersey Marine and the house of the Amazons.
There you’ll find me, piles of me, in their Fulfilment Centre.

You bought a semi in the Uplands, Tonker. Half a million,
they say. And now there’s been a small accident,
the sort that’s not uncommon up on the hill.
The payout? A million. I ask you, Tonker my lad,
might it look as if it was you that lit the match?